Take yourself back to the early 2010s: It’s Friday night, you just got a hot new outfit from Urban Outfitters, and you’re ready to go out for some bacon-wrapped bacon. While you get ready, you throw on the hottest pop song of the moment, which combines autotuned vocals with insipid lyrics and a nonsensical music video. That’s right: You’re listening to Rebecca Black ‘s “ Friday.”
For a while, this song was everywhere. Its official YouTube video has 175 million lifetime views, and its star still sees her Google search traffic spike every time the weekend rolls around. A song that began as a fun diversion for a 13-year-old has become a case study about internet fame, online hate, and the power of a positive attitude.
Black recorded “Friday” in tandem with ARK Music Factory, a production company that wrote songs and edited music videos to turn its young clients into one-off pop stars. Most of ARK’s offerings were repetitive ditties (like this one), but “Friday” had a certain je ne sais quoi that made it catnip for YouTube viewers.
Ultimately, “Friday” is far from YouTube’s worst video, despite what the critics may say. So why did the internet have so much fun, fun, fun, fun with a tween’s innocent bid for pop stardom?
The state of YouTube in 2011 helps us answer that question. As we discussed in our 2010 retrospective, the first years of that decade were the zenith of the viral video. YouTube’s homepage design turned the platform into a grand game of call-and-response. The top videos of the moment proved inescapable, and the rest of the creator community scrambled to upload their reactions, replies, commentaries, and parodies.
With so much attention paid to a small subset of videos, critical backlash was inevitable. After all, 2011 was also the heyday of the hipster subculture, when disdain for the mainstream evolved into an entire lifestyle. Haters were eager to push back against the virality machine YouTube had become, and “Friday” offered them a palpable opportunity to diss uninspired art.
The YouTube hipsters of 2011 weren’t just resisting the concept of popularity. They were also responding to videos that were grating by design. These days, Gen Alpha logs on to watch Skibidi and Spider-Man, but 2010s kids had their own brand of brainrot: The literal Annoying Orange.
Dane Boedigheimer ‘s fruity menace was at the peak of his powers in 2011, when the most-watched Annoying Orange video hit YouTube. In a sense, The Annoying Orange was the spiritual successor to another YouTube character who entertained his fans while irritating pretty much everyone else. Even after Fred Figglehorn lost his spot as YouTube’s most-subscribed draw, Lucas Cruikshank ‘s alter ego was still a big enough deal to land a deal with the Annoying Orange himself.
The prevalence of intentionally annoying characters, when combined with the virality achieved by top channels in general, created a culture that was ripe for negative blowback. It was in that environment that “Friday” arrived, bringing a perfect storm of terrible music to YouTube.
13-year-old Black received an unreasonable amount of hate after “Friday,” but the concept of a hate-watch proved to be enduring. More than a decade later, “ rage bait ” videos are all the rage. Creators are realizing that the idiom about catching more flies with honey than with vinegar may not apply on the internet.
Rebecca Black’s post-“Friday” fame provided a blueprint for creators who are willing to embrace the hate. In retrospect, Black took it all in stride. She released a follow-up called “Saturday” alongside YouTuber Dave Days and eventually debuted a full album of original music. As she has grown up, she has stayed humble regarding the video that vaulted her to international recognition. Black hasn’t let “Friday” define her, but she’s not ashamed of it, either.
“Friday” was supposed to go down in history as the YouTube video everyone loved to hate, but Black didn’t let that happen. A torrent of disparaging comments stared her in the face, and she met them with grace and composure. Her measured reaction told creators that they didn’t have to see poorly-made videos as black marks. Rather, ill-conceived content could be construed as a stepping stone to bigger and better things.
Black, who is twice as old now as she was when “Friday” came out, is still an inspiration. Her trajectory sends a message to young creators: If you don’t like the videos you’re putting up now, stay strong and don’t let negativity live in your head rent-free. Whether you take advantage of Black’s recent career advice is totally up to you.